This application relates to crystalline oxide materials. These materials may be layered materials, wherein the layers are spaced apart by a swelling agent or a pillaring agent. These materials have characteristic X-ray diffraction patterns.
Many layered materials are known which have three-dimensional structures which exhibit their strongest chemical bonding in only two dimensions. In such materials, the stronger chemical bonds are formed in two-dimensional planes and a three-dimensional solid is formed by stacking such planes on top of each other. However, the interactions between the planes are weaker than the chemical bonds holding an individual plane together. The weaker bonds generally arise from interlayer attractions such as Van der Waals forces, electrostatic interactions, and hydrogen bonding. In those situations where the layered structure has electronically neutral sheets interacting with each other solely through Van der Waals forces, a high degree of lubricity is manifested as the planes slide across each other without encountering the energy barriers that arise with strong interlayer bonding. Graphite is an example of such a material. The silicate layers of a number of clay materials are held together by electrostatic attraction mediated by ions located between the layers. In addition, hydrogen bonding interactions can occur directly between complementary sites on adjacent layers, or can be mediated by interlamellar bridging molecules.
Laminated materials such as clays may be modified to increase their surface area. In particular, the distance between the layers can be increased substantially by absorption of various swelling agents such as water, ethylene glycol, amines, ketones, etc., which enter the interlamellar space and push the layers apart. However, the interlamellar spaces of such layered materials tend to collapse when the molecules occupying the space are removed by, for example, exposing the clays to high temperatures. Accordingly, such layered materials having enhanced surface area are not suited for use in chemical processes involving even moderately severe conditions.
The extent of interlayer separation can be estimated by using standard techniques such as X-ray diffraction to determine the basal spacing, also known as "repeat distance" or "d-spacing". These values indicate the distance between, for example, the uppermost margin of one layer with the uppermost margin of its adjoining layer. If the layer thickness is known, the interlayer spacing can be determined by subtracting the layer thickness from the basal spacing.
Various approaches have been taken to provide layered materials of enhanced interlayer distance having thermal stability. Most techniques rely upon the introduction of an inorganic "pillaring" agent between the layers of a layered material. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,216,188 incorporated herein by reference discloses a clay which is cross-linked with metal hydroxide prepared from a highly dilute colloidal solution containing fully separated unit layers and a cross-linking agent comprising a colloidal metal hydroxide solution. However, this method requires a highly dilute forming solution of clay (less than 1 g/1) in order to effect full layer separation prior to incorporation of the pillaring species, as well as positively charged species of cross linking agents. U.S. Pat. No. 4,248,739, incorporated herein by reference, relates to stable pillared interlayered clay prepared from smectite clays reacted with cationic metal complexes of metals such as aluminum and zirconium. The resulting products exhibit high interlayer separation and thermal stability.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,176,090, incorporated herein by reference, discloses a clay composition interlayered with polymeric cationic hydroxy metal complexes of metals such as aluminum, zirconium and titanium. Interlayer distances of up to 16A are claimed although only distances restricted to about 9A are exemplified for calcined samples. These distances are essentially unvariable and related to the specific size of the hydroxy metal complex.
Silicon-containing materials are believed to be a highly desirable species of intercalating agents owing to their high thermal stability characteristics. U.S. Pat. No. 4,367,163, incorporated herein by reference, describes a clay intercalated with silica by impregnating a clay substrate with a silicon-containing reactant such as an ionic silicon complex, e.g., silicon acetylacetonate, or a neutral species such as SiCl.sub.4. The clay may be swelled prior to or during silicon impregnation with a suitable polar solvent such as methylene chloride, acetone, benzaldehyde, tri- or tetraalkylammonium ions, or dimethylsulfoxide. This method, however, appears to provide only a monolayer of intercalated silica resulting in a product of small spacing between layers, about 2-3 A as determined by X-ray diffraction.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,859,648 describes layered oxide products of high thermal stability and surface area which contain interlayer polymeric oxides such as polymeric silica. These products are prepared by ion exchanging a layered metal oxide, such as layered titanium oxide, with organic cation, to spread the layers apart. A compound such as tetraethylorthosilicate, capable of forming a polymeric oxide, is thereafter introduced between the layers. The resulting product is treated to form polymeric oxide, e.g., by hydrolysis, to produce the layered oxide product. The resulting product may be employed as a catalyst material in the conversion of hydrocarbons.
Crystalline oxides include both naturally occurring and synthetic materials. Examples of such materials include porous solids known as zeolites. The structures of crystalline oxide zeolites may be described as containing corner-sharing tetrahedra having a three-dimensional four-connected net with T-atoms at the vertices of the net and O-atoms near the midpoints of the connecting lines. Further characteristics of certain zeolites are described in Collection of Simulated XRD Powder Patterns for Zeolites by Roland von Ballmoos, Butterworth Scientific Limited, 1984.
Synthetic zeolites are often prepared from aqueous reaction mixtures comprising sources of appropriate oxides. Organic directing agents may also be included in the reaction mixture for the purpose of influencing the production of a zeolite having the desired structure. The use of such directing agents is discussed in an article by Lok et al. entitled "The Role of Organic Molecules in Molecular Sieve Synthesis" appearing in Zeolites, Vol. 3, October, 1983, pp. 282-291.
After the components of the reaction mixture are properly mixed with one another, the reaction mixture is subjected to appropriate crystallization conditions. Such conditions usually involve heating of the reaction mixture to an elevated temperature possibly with stirring. Room temperature aging of the reaction mixture is also desirable in some instances.
After the crystallization of the reaction mixture is complete, the crystalline product may be recovered from the remainder of the reaction mixture, especially the liquid contents thereof. Such recovery may involve filtering the crystals and washing these crystals with water. However, in order to remove all of the undesired residue of the reaction mixture from the crystals, it is often necessary to subject the crystals to a high temperature calcination e.g., at 500.degree. C., possibly in the presence of oxygen. Such a calcination treatment not only removes water from the crystals, but this treatment also serves to decompose and/or oxidize the residue of the organic directing agent which may be occluded in the pores of the crystals, possibly occupying ion exchange sites therein.
In accordance with aspects of inventive subject matter described herein, it has been discovered that a certain synthetic crystalline oxide undergoes a transformation during the synthesis thereof from an intermediate swellable layered state to a non-swellable final state having order in three dimensions, the layers being stacked upon one another in an orderly fashion. This transformation may occur during the drying of the recovered crystals, even at moderate temperatures, e.g., 110.degree. C. or greater. By interrupting the synthesis of these materials prior to final calcination and intercepting these materials in their swellable intermediate state, it is possible to interpose materials such as swelling, pillaring or propping agents between these layers before the material is transformed into a non-swellable state. When the swollen, non-pillared form of these materials is calcined, these materials may be transformed into materials which have disorder in the axis perpendicular to the planes of the layers, due to disordered stacking of the layers upon one another.